and we all keep on moving

the world just continues on after something traumatic and terrible happens. isn't that always a shock to us? and it always is a shock to me that time does help. the night bella died, i was filled with such incredible sadness, i felt that my heart was breaking in little fragments and i didn't even have the strength to grab a broom and keep up with it. bella being who she was, and being with us for such a short time really taught me quite a few things about love, loss, and family. it's no secret to those reading this blog that i'm not necessarily from the most traditional family. on the outside, sure, i even am told how much i resemble my parents. but i am adopted, and while it's a wonderful blessing to have started my life with so much love- the love of making sure i had a good home, the love of making sure i had a life, and the love of my family... etc, etc, etc; sometimes it doesn't feel like it began with love. sometimes it feels cold, calculating, unfair. and i don't just mean for one side or the other. on both sides of the exchange, it feels unfair at times. when you dive into the issues of giving up a baby, and not being able to have your own children, there's a lot of "unfair" going around, i guess.

so my concepts on family and love and the fairness of the world have been complex, starting probably when i was 12 and may or may not have screamed nasty things at my parents as i stomped upstairs and slammed my bedroom door. to come full circle with this blog in one sense, i said when i started it that it was a discovery of this post-marriage, post-maiden name, post-college me. and it has been a discovery- what goes into a marriage, what goes into creating a family is all becoming new for me somehow, in some way. bella taught me an important lesson in love- one that seems to correlate to my complex, somewhat over-analyzed views on marriage and family...

you see, it took less than five minutes to know i was going to love her. isn't that wild? yes, we didn't know her that long. yes, i held her for an hour before taking her home. yes, we discussed it backwards and forwards. and yes, she was only home for 24 hours, and only with us for about half of that. but the crazy thing is, time didn't matter. once we decided to love her and bring her into our family, that's what we did. and everything else really doesn't matter.

and by the way, time really does help things. that first night i felt anguished. the next day, i was angry, later, i was sad- projecting guilt onto myself. and later- i realize it's just not. fair.

the story doesn't really end there. i haven't stopped talking about bringing another puppy into our house since two days after bella died. i'm not quite sure what was wrong with me- maybe i needed somewhere for the excess love to go. maybe i'm just a freak of an animal lover and i needed one. and, maybe this goes back to deciding that i need something and finding a way to get it. husband needed more time. i'm glad he did- because secretly i think i did, too. we ended up bringing little maisie home on friday night (yes, it's 4:53am on monday. i clearly suck at crate training). part of me was worried- am i expecting a little puppy to heal my heart? that's a lot to expect from her. she isn't bella- she is someone new to love and in way, she deserves all the love bella received and more. maisie is easy to love... in that careful, cautious way. the i-just-got-my-heart-broken-so-don't-think-you're-gonna-get-in-the-door thaaaat quickly way. i find myself like a teenager though, a little hardened from the last hurt, but still hoping for a kiss goodnight to make me feel swoony. (for the record, i never really had my heart broken by a boy. somehow husband managed to capture me at the tender age of 17... although emotional teenage me certainly could imagine what it would have felt like to have him decide to go out with my best friend).

so here we are, maisie, husband and myself. not sleeping, unsure about what to do with disciplinging this little pistol. (she loves shoes, finding a thread to yank from a rug, and doing everything she can to distract us at the dinner table). maisie is very easy to love, and husband and i are figuring out how to love a little furbaby again. (p.s. part of me is terrified that something will happen to her. if you pray, or think positive thoughts, i would appreciate some positive thoughts her way... although we bleached our entire house, parvo is still contagious and it still fraeks me out).

alright, enough for now... i'm going to try to get some sleep with my puppy who spends every night ccrying and then peeing in her crate. (for the record, her crate is divided. there is barely enough room for her to turn around in there. i know dogs don't pee where they sleep, but she does, because 1. she doesn't seem to sleep in there unless it's 4 in the afternoon and sunny, and 2. she pees and then gets upset about it, waking us up. and 3. we take her out every hour to go pee. by the time bedtime comes she is to the point of pretending to pee so she can come back inside since her little bladder is so empty. it magically fills back up again sometime between 2-4am.)whew... it's gonna be a fun ride with this one.